they could dominate with a new mmo if they made one wow like but more unchildlike in graphics with a big world bu,t, also more in the players control such as swg pre cu upgrade. dont really use lotr it didnt hit as well as people would think. i helped beta it and a lot of the beta testers didnt like the world size or the reptitive mob graphics.

a few key things.
1- we want large worlds to play.{reason wow is still top of market}
2-we want adult graphics not childlike in wow.{dont use cartoonish graphics}
3-allow houses where we can decorate to our taste and provide a multitude of things we can decorate with.{swg guildhalls, take a look online at some of the old gh picks}
4-dont force grouping or control or financial invironment{ swg forced grouping for better missions and wow did right on thier server financial controls its more player controled}
5-allow for many diff play styles{more races and classes you can be{ wow didnht have enough races but class choices were great}
6-make the game fun not a constant grind{swg people would spend hours in their houses decorating i myself was capable of spending hours adjusting my house becuase of ability to adjust donw to a inch. wow however forces a grind to 70 or twinking a char which is a hard grind as well.}

simple ideas and easy to implement into virtually any game type.

Totally got it right..Though, I like WoW's graphics I also loved the direction the platform FFs were going. LoTR's graphics were stunning as well.

But, yeah. Totally agree. These are keys...even if FFXI didn't embrace much of these ideas, at least having the different playstyle and non-forced grouping would have made me stay.

I loved FFXI, but because of the inability to truly solo (as anything...bst and puppet were jokes. D:) I find myself glued to WoW, and hoping Square Enix doesn't get their act together to redirect my attention.... :P

<.<; Sorry, got off topic. Totally agreed, blackice.

Yeah. I agree with you guys here except for the graphics part. One reason a lot of people still play WoW is it's not a huge system hog, and it still manages to look beautiful with such low polygons. Even the screenshots of WotLK are pretty amazing considering the limitations of the game engine.

Another big thing about MMO's is the grind. You're never going to get away from some sort of grind, but what this new MMO can do is make it less painful. Please :) In WoW you grind all the way up to 70 and then when you think it's over you end up grinding even more. It's a never ending grind and it sort of takes out the fun.

What I'd like to see is more of an event driven given. Like constant event's going on around you. I know a lot of MMO's have attempted this in the past and failed miserably, but if done right I think you can really change how people look at MMO's. I'm not saying everyone has to group up to do a certain thing. We want wars, invasion's, etc, and we want it to matter.

This also brings me to my next point; the story NEEDS to be implemented more into the genre. This is square-enix here making an MMO, so the story wouldn't be a problem. They always pull something out of the magic hat that makes a game magical (other than FFXI; I seriously got lost as to where the story was actually heading). But seriously, I wouldn't mind playing a game if I was going somewhere in the world besides getting Epik Lewtz. Imagine if you helped build an entire city through resources and stuff that actually changed the way the game is. It would truly be an ever-changing world.

But then again I don't like to get my hopes up like this, lol. It's been 7 years since I first played an MMO and I've been hoping for the same thing ever since. I'd like to see the day when it actually happens though :)

First off it makes me chuckle that many think leveling in WoW is a grind obviously haven't played Everquest, which I have been since launch 8 years ago and THAT is a grind (I am still proud of the effort in getting my mage his original epic when it was level 50 back then) The newest WoW patch 2.3 increases the experience gained per quest completion in old world WoW and is on par with BC level experience gains. I was able to get my warrior to 63 in little as 21 days played with a BIG increase after the patch came in. The Blizzard philosophy of leveling is very different from other games as they stated long ago that this game is geared towards the younger audience and causal player.

The WoW graphics is obviously dated but makes it practical for many who don't have a uber system to handle the demands of more recent games coming out. The graphics engine is old but we all have to keep in mind of the game philosophy as stated above. I cringe and feel sorry for those that I see in WoW herking jerking around in Ironforge under the lag and feel even more sorry for them when they enter BC and Shattrah in particular. Yes system requirements are stated before you buy but you never know how it will work out till you try it. And given the way WoW plays it would be hard for many to leave the game even under less than optimal conditions. I played FFXI for a while but I disliked the lack of a UI and I couldn't remember the menu options and implement macros well enough and remember them all to really get into the game.

The biggest gripe I have with these games is the lack of a in depth story but mostly the Fed Ex approach to the quest lines. There seems to be a game designer rut that the Fed Ex approach is the only way to progress in a game. I don't think so. If they would only truly put their brain power into this aspect of game play they would broaden the appeal of games.

Lastly is about expansions. They almost in every case cater to the high end part of the game. This is a trap that many fall into and Blizzard is no exception. BC's appeal is weighed in favor of the end game experience. And it appears that WotLK will be no exception. With a 9.5 million player base you would wonder that Blizzard or Vivendi actually, would bankroll into improving the old world content so to keep that large player base happy and interested instead of putting their money into acquiring a company like Activison. I see a profound lack of change or imagination in the overall MMO picture and basic approach. But one can still hope.